. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 436 THE PASSENGER PIGEON. Fruit Pigeon is in great request for the table, and is shot by liundreds. During the nutmeg season, tliese Pigeons find such an abundance of food that they become inordinately fat, and are sometimes so extremely plump, that when they are shot, and fall to the ground, they burst asunder. Setting aside the gastronomical properties of this bird, it is a most useful creature, being the means of disseminating far and wide the remarkable nutmeg-tree. The Pigeon being
. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 436 THE PASSENGER PIGEON. Fruit Pigeon is in great request for the table, and is shot by liundreds. During the nutmeg season, tliese Pigeons find such an abundance of food that they become inordinately fat, and are sometimes so extremely plump, that when they are shot, and fall to the ground, they burst asunder. Setting aside the gastronomical properties of this bird, it is a most useful creature, being the means of disseminating far and wide the remarkable nutmeg-tree. The Pigeon being a bird of large appetite, swallows the nutmeg together with the mace, but only the latter sub- stance is subject to digestion, the nutmeg itself passing through the system with its repro- ductive powers not only uninjured, but even imi^ PASSENGER VIQEOti.—Bceophtes mlgrakiHut. of by The sojourn within the body of the bird seems to be almost necessary in order to induce the nutmeg to grow ; and when planted by human hands, it jnust be chemically treated with some prejiaration before it will strike root. The color of this species is as follows: The foreliead, cheeks, and throat are grayish-white, and the rest of the head and the back of the neck are gray with a slaty blue wash. The back and ui)per portions of the body are light metallic green. The lower part of the throat and the breast are rusty gray, and the thighs and abdomen are deep brownish-red. The under surface of the tail is also green, but with a reddish gloss. The total length of the bird is about fourteen or fifteen inches. Among the most extraordinary of birds, the Passenger Pigeon may take very high lunk, not on account of its size or beauty, but on account of the exti-aordinary multitudes in which it sometimes migrates from one place to another. The scenes which take place during these migra- tions are so strange, so wonderful, the Atlantic, that they could not which tliey are corroborated. To and so entir
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbr, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectzoology
